


The Talk

by Silex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, kids being kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Dudley always worried about having to have the talk with his boys.No, not that talk, the other one. The one about the 'm' word.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 128
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plumeria47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumeria47/gifts).



> Hope you don't mind a late treat!

It was time.

The boys were starting to get older, ask questions that were awkward to say the least and they deserved an answer, because one way or another they’d find out and having it happen at a family get-together with both sets of grandparents around wasn’t something Dudley wanted to ever see happen.

Harry had done a good job of making sure his children acted proper, normal, but there was only so much that could be expected. Kids were kids and they talked about things, their interests, and with Milton interested in outer space and Sam obsessed with dinosaurs, dragons and all kinds of monsters Dudley could see exactly how it would happen.

They’d be sharing stories or bragging and Dudley was sure that by this point Harry’s children had to know all about all sorts of strange things.

If Milton brought up the rings of Saturn or that Mars’ had two moons that looked like potatoes, one of Harry’s boys was sure to talk about how if Mars was aligned with Jupiter and you said the right thing you could turn invisible or levitate something equally absurd. Dudley had made a point of not knowing how magic worked and was happier for it.

And if Sam showed off the big encyclopedia of movie monsters he’d gotten last Christmas, much to his mother’s chagrin, Harry’s boys were bound to laugh and say the monsters were all wrong.

And then they’d take out an encyclopedia of real monsters rather than all of the ones in the movies.

And how would Dudley explain that to them? He was their father, he was supposed to know things, and admitting that there was so much he didn’t know, or that he’d tried to hide from them was unthinkable. They’d probably never trust or believe them again.

So he called them into the living room early one Saturday morning, before the cartoons they liked to watch started, because that was the easiest way to keep their attention in the summer.

It was funny, he remembered from his own childhood, that getting up early during the school year had been an ordeal, but once summer hit it was so easy to do. It was the same for his boys.

They sat down on the sofa and he sat down in his armchair and they all stared at each other for a long, awkward silence until he figured out what to say.

“Boys, I think it’s time we had a talk.”

From the looks he got it was as though he’d announced that Christmas was canceled and cabbage was officially a dessert food from that point forward.

“The talk?” Sam gasped.

Milton simply gagged.

“Not _the_ talk,” Dudley stammered turning red, “I want your mother to be around for that one.”

Mostly to help spread out the awkwardness, but also because managing one talk alone was more than Dudley wanted.

This talk though, he couldn’t ask his wife for help with.

This one was his alone.

“You might have noticed some things,” Dudley chose his words carefully, thinking about a few particular incidents, “Strange things.”

Milton shook his head and covered his ears.

Sam pretended to fall into a dead faint.

All in all it was going better than he’d hoped.

“Not that kind of thing!” Dudley said firmly, “I mean how last week that pot of stuffed cabbage your mother was making for supper vanished.”

Sam sat bolt upright, “I didn’t touch it!”

“Me neither,” Milton held a hand over his heart, “I swear.”

“I’m saying that I believe you that it just vanished,” Dudley reassured, just like he had when the incident had happened and they’d needed to get takeout that night. He’d been upset, but not angry like the boys seemed to think he’d been. Even if his wife’s stuffed cabbage was amazing, despite what the boys thought, “Things like that happen.”

Milton looked at him, “What sorts of things?”

“Things vanishing,” Dudley said, “Or happening.”

He winced as he remembered what the giant, hairy man had done to him when he was his boy’s age. Ending up with that horrible tail had been humiliating and the surgery had been awful too. He’d never told anyone about it and tried not to think about it, but his first encounters with magic had been uniformly terrifying. At least with vanishing cabbage no one was at risk of being mauled. Or permanently disfigured.

“Like a teacher’s computer erasing all of everyone’s grades after they yelled at you?” Sam asked sheepishly.

He hadn’t heard that one.

“Exactly,” Dudley agreed, not sure if that was coincidence, sabotage or something else, but it worked for the purpose of what he was trying to say, “Or maybe you’ve heard your cousins talking about strange things.”

This got a nod from both boys.

“James made fun on mom’s lawn gnome collection,” Milton said gravely.

Which just went to show that Harry’s boys might have had some sense despite their upbringing. Dudley didn’t think much of his wife’s collection either, especially when she added to it without telling him. Finding a new face staring up at him from the daises when he was helping with the yardwork was always a shock.

“Then he told us he’d find us a real gnome,” Sam added, “He did too. It was really, really ugly and hiding in a hole under the hollyhocks. It’s them, not moles, that keep digging up the tomato plants.”

Learning that his yard was infested with strangeness wasn’t what Dudley had hoped for with this talk, but he supposed knowing was better than not knowing in case he found a _real_ gnome while weeding the garden. Just the thought made him shudder.

Strangeness in his garden.

Not just in his garden though.

“So you know already that some things are real,” Dudley said somberly, “Strange things, maybe unpleasant things.”

Maybe, because they so enjoyed playing with their cousins. Looking back it was the kind of relationship that only in hindsight when it was too late, did he wish that he had with his cousin. He didn’t want to ruin that for his boys, but the gnomes certainly sounded unpleasant.

“James says he’s going to school for magic,” Sam said, head bowed, “And that we weren’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“Al’s going to be going to it this year,” Milton added, eyes downcast, “James said he already knows some magic, but he can’t show us yet. Aunt Ginerva yelled at him when she found out about the gnomes.”

Of course his boys already knew. Wasn’t his wife always telling him that kids picked up on things and lived half in their own little world, a world hidden from adults? Of course she didn’t know the half of it, that there was a real hidden world that most people didn’t know about. Most normal people at least.

“Well,” Dudley swallowed, “Did you ever want to go to that school?”

Sam nodded.

Milton shook his head.

Dudley stared in surprise.

That wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

“Why not?” Dudley had never imagined that either of them would turn down the chance to learn magic, especially if their cousins had already been dropping hints.

“I’d rather be an astronaut,” Milton said sheepishly, as though he realized how unusual it must have been, “Besides, if gnomes are real then there’s got to be life under the ice of Europa and I want to be the one to discover it. Could you imagine it, being the first one to see a space alien? I bet they’re going to look like deep sea fish or worms, which is way freakier than anything in the movies.”

Milton stuck his tongue out as his brother for emphasis.

Sam actually had to think about that for a moment.

“I could use magic to fly without a rocket,” he offered, then frowned, “Or maybe find a real werewolf? If gnomes and aliens are real then so are werewolves. Or dragons! I could have a pet dragon and he could eat anyone I don’t like!”

That was more of what Dudley had expected after an owl had shown up at the bedroom window the previous evening, prompting a long, sleepless night.

“Well,” Dudley reached behind his chair and picked up what he’d hidden beneath it, two letters, one for each of the boys, “If you want to go I’m not going to stop you and if you don’t it’s your choice.”

Now Milton had to think, “Do you think I could learn magic and be an astronaut too?”

“I…” Dudley hadn’t been prepared for that question. He’d braced himself for the boys pulling the letters from his hand and reading them with breathless excitement, which was what Sam was doing, “I don’t actually know. We can call your uncle and ask him about that though, he knows more about that sort of thing than I do.”

“Uncle Harry?” Now both boys were excited, they only saw their cousins on holidays and special occasions and any chance to talk to them or visit was something they weren’t going to pass up, “He knows magic?”

“Yes,” Dudley looked away, suddenly feeling awkward at how well he’d managed to hide that from the boys, “He’s actually rather famous.”

“Famous?” the boys said at the same time and then burst out laughing.

“He’s so boring though,” Sam said between giggles.

Maybe he’d done too good a job of things.

“He can’t be as famous as Neil Armstrong,” Milton added.

Or maybe it was a case of children having minds and priorities of their own, something that was cemented in his mind by Sam’s next comment.

“Do you think that Aunt Ginny learned to cook at magic school? Because she’s so much better at it than mom.”

“I think she uses cookbooks,” Dudley said, rather upset, as he thought there was nothing wrong with his wife’s cooking, “And don’t let your mother hear you talking like that. Just because you don’t like broccoli and cabbage.”

Sam rolled his eyes and then pointed excitedly at something on his letter, “Look here! Look at this!”

Milton looked at the letter, his eyes growing wide, “No way! It says we can have a pet owl!”

“Or a cat,” Sam added, “Right there, it says cats are allowed.”

Yes, children certainly had their own priorities and, remembering his own childhood, Dudley supposed that he’d have been more excited about having a pet owl than going to school, even a magical school.

“Let me see that,” Dudley took the letter from the boys, both of them helpfully pointing out the part they’d been reading, “It says you’re permitted to have a pet, not that you get one. Your mother has the final say in that.”

The boys frowned and immediately began an animated discussion of how to convince their mother that an owl, or a cat, would be a fine pet.

Children and their priorities, Dudley smiled to himself as he stood up.

All in all the talk had gone far better than he’d hoped.

Differently, but certainly better.

It made him feel far more confident about the second part of it, the talk he was going to have to have with his wife when she got back from shopping, before the boys ambushed her in the driveway with talk of cats and owls.


End file.
